fect

"A rolling stone gathers no moss (苔藓) ," but there is one living animal that does gather moss, the three-toed sloth (树獭) of South America. This slowest-moving member of the animal kingdom is so inactive that moss actually gathers on its body and turns it green strange as it seems!

Most of the sloth's life is spent motionless, hanging upside down from a limb. And that is the way its hair grows. Long and coarse, the strands (串) from receptacles (花托) for the damp jungle algae (水藻) that turn the brown fur a mossy green. Actually this moss helps the animal survive because it serves as a per- fect camouflage against the leaf trees and hides the sloth from the jungle's swift-moving hunters. The sloth would have little chance of survival on the ground. With long, curved claws hooked over the limb of a leafy tree, it spends the long hot hours during the day drowsing and eating. Inch by inch, it strips the leafy limbs bare and crawls Slowly down the trunk to find a new dining spot, but only at night.

In addition to looking rather like a vegetable, the sloth is a strict vegetarian. Running out of its favorite leaf is about the only thing that will make a sloth move. Then its appetite may even force the animal into swimming a stream to reach a juicy succulent(多汁的值物). It will also force it into fighting to keep the tree all to itself. The sloth is lazy and prefers to be alone, but it will tolerate its own relatives!

A suitable title for this passage might be ______. ()

A．Wild Animals

B．Animal Kingdom

C．Moss Growth

D．The Lazy Animal

U. S. to Start $ 3. 2 Billion Child Health Study in January

A study that will cost $ 3. 2 billion and last more than two decades to track the health of 100,000 U. S.children from before birth to age 21 will be Iaunched in January, U. S. health officials said on Friday.

Officials from the U. S. government's National Institutes of Health said they hope the study, to be conducted at 105 locations throughout the United States, can help identify early-life influences that af- fect later development, with the goal of learning new ways to treat or prevent illness.

The study will examine hereditary and environmental factors such as exposure to certain chemicals that affect health.

Researchers will collect genetic and biological samples from people in the study as well as samples from the homes of the women and their babies including air, water, dust and materials used to con- struct their residences, the NIH said.

Officials said more than $ 200 million has been spent already and the study is projected to cost $ 3. 2 billion.

"We anticipate that in the long term, what we lea:m from the study will result in a significant savings in the nation's health care costs, " Dr. Duane Alexander,r who heads the NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, told reporters.

The study will begin in January when the University of North Carolina and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York start signing up pregnant women whose babies will then be followed to age 21.

Some of the early findings will be about factors behind pre-term birth, which has become more common

in recent years, according to Dr. Peter Scheidt of the NIH, who heads the study.

The people taking part will be from rural, urban and suburban areas, from all income and educa-

tional levels and from all racial groups, the NIH said.

The aim of the study is to find new ways to____.

A.conduct research

B.track public health

C.prevent or treat illness

D.s.peed up development

此题为判断题(对，错)。

此题为判断题(对，错)。

此题为判断题(对，错)。

此题为判断题(对，错)。